REAL ESTATE

Neighborhood face-lift gives Hollywood pause

Some worry that a proliferation of high-end building projects will bury the charm of the area's golden past

Construction cranes hover over Hollywood as the movie industry's historic home undergoes another sweeping -- and sometimes wrenching -- transformation. More than a dozen multimillion-dollar projects have been announced, launched or just completed that promise new shopping and restaurants, thousands of new apartments and condominiums and towers of glass and steel. Glitzy clubs dot once-sketchy street corners. Residents swim atop the former Broadway department store at Hollywood and Vine. Construction projects cuddle up to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and are popping up in the shadow of the landmark Capitol Records tower. The changes can be both impressive and alarming to those who know Hollywood best. Residents and business owners marvel at the improvements around them. Yet they prize the lingering charm of Hollywood's golden past and fear that the place they love is slipping away.

"My worst-case scenario is that it loses the special flavor that is unique to Hollywood," said neighborhood activist Cheryl Holland, who has lived there for almost 20 years.

"We want some give and take" with planners and developers, she said. "Our streets are unique because we abut commercial property." But, she added, "this is a very historic neighborhood with streets that are quaint and charming."

The love-hate battle over development that is playing out in neighborhoods all over the Southland and elsewhere is amplified here. Every construction permit faces questions about parking, open space, blocked views, historic preservation and the stress on basic city services.

To be sure, some outsiders may dismiss the concerns as grousing by people who don't appreciate how good they have it. After all, this is a neighborhood of growing affluence seeing an explosion of new entertainment venues and luxury housing and hotel rooms that would be the envy of much of Southern California.

Not just a neighborhood

Reinventing Hollywood is a challenge more daunting than most city centers ever face. "It's a place of dreams, a metaphor and not just a neighborhood," said urban expert Joel Garreau. People have so many different visions in their mind of what Hollywood is, he said, "you are going to get incredible culture clash, economic clash and political clash."

Since the days of Cecil B. DeMille, Hollywood has been larger than life and still holds a grip on people's attention and fascination with Southern California. Changes like those underway today come with protest, boosterism, second-guessing, excitement and angst.

With traffic already awful at many hours, fears multiply that congestion will make Hollywood truly unbearable if developers aren't reined in. Parking has become a fractious issue, too, as prices rise at a diminishing number of lots and local leaders debate whether to build more garages.

Between the traffic and parking difficulties, "it's not much longer that we are going to be able to come down there," said Hollywood Hills resident Daniel Savage. "There is a fantastic domino effect that happens when traffic backs up."

For many, it is all a mixed blessing. No one seems to miss the bad old days dating back to the 1960s, when the neighborhood started losing its luster as many prosperous residents decamped L.A.'s urban core for the suburbs.

The neighborhood's reputation was so bad by the 1980s, recalled honorary Hollywood mayor Johnny Grant in an interview shortly before his death in January, that "it was tough to get people to come accept a star on the Walk of Fame."

Grant's boosterism was a source of amusement, he recalled. "The big sport was laughing at me because I kept saying that Hollywood was coming back."

Observers stopped laughing a few years ago as investment exploded in Hollywood. Nearly 5,000 condominiums and apartments have been built or are soon to be underway in the blocks around Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, where a glitzy W Hotel is also under construction.

Plans have been announced to add 10 stories of office space atop the historic Pantages Theatre to complete the original 1920s design. And nightclubs seem to be opening on every block -- there are, according to police, about 100 establishments in the core entertainment district licensed to sell liquor.

Meanwhile, crime in Hollywood is down 32% from 2003, said Capt. Clayton Farrell of the Los Angeles Police Department.

"We don't have the endemic crime problems that Hollywood experienced in the '80s and '90s in spite of an increase in the number of persons coming to Hollywood for entertainment," Farrell said. "The nightclubs bring in alcohol and other issues but also a lot of affluence and people" who patronize other businesses.